


and the world's gonna know your names

by a_mind_at_work (Madame_Marauder)



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Easter, Family Tradition, Gen, M/M, Other, hot cross buns
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-17 05:36:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14181999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madame_Marauder/pseuds/a_mind_at_work
Summary: A nonlinear look at the life of a young, scrappy, and hungry kid from an island you've never heard of.Alternatively, a modern au.





	and the world's gonna know your names

     Alexander's already had a couple, but he can't help but go for  _ one _ more hot cross bun. Just- just one more. He made them, after all, he deserves as many as he wants.

    John pads across the kitchen and loops his arms around Alexander’s waist, humming as he snags a bun off of the plate. “I'll never understand how you manage to commit hours and hours to make these every year.”

    “Because it's  _ tradition _ , John,” Alexander replies, leaning back against him. “And besides, I think they're worth it, don't you?”

     A pause, as John takes a bite. “Yeah. You're right.”

     There's something odd in the air, and it takes Alexander a moment to rewind and realize what he's said.  _ Because it's tradition, John.  _ And it is, it is, something he's done every year of his life. One of his first clear memories is standing on a chair at their kitchen counter, his mother showing him how to paint the butter on the top of the rolls as his father patiently helped his brother stumble through the themed crossword in the paper. First arriving in the States, he'd managed to talk either a friend's parents or that particular set of fosters into letting him occupy their kitchen for a few hours. Even off the tail end of  _ that  _ winter, he'd scraped together enough pennies to buy enough ingredients for a small pan.  _ It's tradition.  _ Just not one that he's said is such.

    And hell would freeze over again before Alexander Hamilton stopped making hot cross buns for Easter.

    But John’s already moving across the room and starting to say something about the aquarium having had an egg hunt Friday, and that apparently one of the plastic ones got grabbed by the resident kleptomaniac octopus, and Alexander laughs and tries not to think too much about how much his mother would've loved his boyfriend.

    He pushes memories away for the moment and carries pans of  ~~_ tradition _ ~~ hot cross buns down the halls to Eliza’s apartment, waits for her to have one from the smaller pan meant for her and her sisters, then loads the other three in her old Prius as their trio climbs in for the ride down to Laf’s place. 

     And Peggy has once again produced her magical cheesecake, and Thomas has baked Mac’n’Cheese, and Angelica has egg salad, and Eliza’s brought mashed potatoes, and Herc did the roast, and James  and John can't cook at  _ all _ but are at least there for moral support and to do dishes. So.

     Alexander fails to hide a yawn, and Angelica smirks. “Tired?”

     “I've been up since four, give me a break,” he replies.

     Peggy probably gives herself mild whiplash spinning to face him. “Why the fuck would you willingly get up at four? The hell, Ham?”

     “It takes half an hour to make the dough, ten minutes to knead, an hour and a half to rise, ten minutes to roll the buns, another half hour to rise again. Then twenty minutes to paint butter on and bake them, ten minutes to glaze. For one pan. So if you've got multiple pans running, that's gonna add another hour or so in bits and pieces. Add in prep work and clean up, and that's around five hours. I got up at four, started at four-thirty, five hours brings us to nine-thirty, and we left the apartment at ten,” he rattles off. At least three people are staring at him after that, and he spins his empty mug in his hands. “What?”

     James shakes his head. “You could have asked someone to come help you, you know.”

     He just shrugs. “It's fine. I'll ask for help with them if I need it.”

     No, no, he won't. He's made them alone for near fifteen years, and he will very well continue that until his husband stands at his left side to help knead the dough. And then that will be the only person he shares the recipe with, until there's a kid standing on a chair waiting to brush the butter on the tops. He'll ask for help with the hot cross buns once he proposes to John in two months. Next year, Alexander will drag his fiance out of bed at the crack of dawn and show him how to knead the dough for hot cross buns, will teach him how to paint butter over the tops and kiss the frosting off his lips. Not until then.

_ It's tradition. _

    Half the table mutters grace, half the table stays quiet, and Alexander finds Spanish and French falling off his lips in a nearly-silent jumble with little to no belief behind it. But it's Easter, and there are hot cross buns on the table, and he's breathing, so he says it nonetheless.

    Thomas notices and quirks an eyebrow. It's one of the points that they've argued over, religion as an institution, and Alexander had been quite clear during that discussion back in college about the fact that he really didn't believe in a god, or at least not the church's official version of one.

     “Tradition,” Alexander murmurs, the word almost lost among others talking and the clank of plates and cups, but Thomas hears and nods an understanding.

     And that’s that, and then they're each swept into conversation as they fill their plates with a little more than they really have to. Peggy’s saying something about this cute girl who just transferred to her school in the middle of senior year of college, and Laf is starting the yearly rendition of the saga of the egg hunt at the family estate, and James has pulled out his phone to show everyone an extraordinarily unenthusiastic selfie of Aaron in bunny ears and suspenders, and it's easy to slip into the easy flow of camaraderie.

     They end with cheesecake and hot cross buns for everyone, and Alexander is warm and full and so very, very happy that it's a dull ache in his chest. Everyone goes home with a myriad of leftovers, and he's flying on top of the world again.

     He takes one of a few full pans left into work with him. Aaron smiles at him and Washington pats his shoulder and the secretary that really doesn't like him decides to cut him some slack. Henry Knox blinks and asks him when he became such a brilliant baker.

     Alexander smiles, and says that his mother taught him to make hot cross buns when he was little.

     He doesn't say anything about a tiny kitchen and a mother who'd been saving for weeks to get ingredients, because the hurricane destroyed the aquarium and no minimum wage job has a use for a marine biology degree. He doesn't say anything about a father who did his best to keep everything around them from overwhelming his sons. He doesn't say anything about a brother who would help him knead the dough several years later, because he was still weak and sickly. He doesn't say anything.

     “It's tradition _,_ ” he does add. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hey folks, welcome to the wannabe-longfic/all the stuff I couldn't make work in either Beli3ver or the City verse. I had a plan for this verse, but that's long fallen by the wayside, so I'm just playing in the sandbox at this point. If you want backstory or explanations, just ask. 
> 
> (also, I might do prompts for this verse on the writing blog. we'll see if anyone actually reads this and go from there.)
> 
> Kudos and comments are appreciated!
> 
> main tumblr: @discount-satan  
> writing tumblr: @littlelionroar


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